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Speaker Upgrade

chrisjm29

Active Member
Jul 12, 2011
26
0
I'm going to be upgrading the speakers in my bocanegra in the next couple of days, and I was just hoping for a bit of advice. At first i am only going to be replacing the rear speakers and the tweeters in the windscreen pillars.

http://www.caraudiodirect.co.uk/alpine-sxe-1750s.html

Would the above speakers be adequate? I'm not looking to upgrade the system (amps etc.), just the speakers.

Also in terms of wiring, would it be a case of unplugging the originals and plugging these ones in, or would they need to be rewired?

Thanks very much
 

chrisjm29

Active Member
Jul 12, 2011
26
0
Thanks for the response. I do plan on replacing front and rears, but the reason I was going to do the rears first is because they are easier, front door card removal looks a bit of s pain, and with my audio settings I play my music on a rear fade also.
 

chrisjm29

Active Member
Jul 12, 2011
26
0
Will these speakers make much of an improvement? I know if I want a vast improvement I should be looking at a new head unit, amp, sub etc.
 

nightflight

Active Member
May 18, 2009
2,677
12
Sheffield
They'll undoubtedly make some improvement, though as you know, you'll get a bigger improvement form changing the headunit. The OEM one can only put out 4x20W, which is nothing.

My other concern would be that the new speakers will be able to handle more much power than the amp (headunit) can put out.
This is generally not a good idea when it comes to hifi (square waves and destroyed amps) but I think/suspect that the OEM headunit has a limiter built into it (When I play some stuff there comes a point where turning the volume up any further (beyond about 20/21 usually) doesn't result in any louder volume and there's a noticeable ducking effect where the mids and hi's get turned down when the kick/bass hits) which may be a "safety" feature.

Nice to know I'm not the only one who uses a slight rear fade set-up :)
 
Last edited:

Hawkins94

Active Member
Jan 24, 2013
43
0
Will these speakers make much of an improvement? I know if I want a vast improvement I should be looking at a new head unit, amp, sub etc.

I think you will notice an improvement but as nightfligth said, it might be worth upgrading the headunit. But those will probably your best bet if you don't plan on changing it.

But if you were to upgrade the headunit to something like an alpine in might be worth looking at some different speakers such as the Hertz DSK 165.3 which will be better than the alpine speakers. And as for the headunit maybe something like the Alpine CDE-123R if you dont mind losing bluetooth. The speakers will be slightly harder to wire up as the have separate crossovers where as the alpines you are looking at appear to have them built in to the speakers.

So the ones you are looking at will be better than standard and for £40 are probably worth a try but if you want something that is going to sound a lot better than standard then you will need to look at a new headunit etc.

Hope this helped, James
 

chrisjm29

Active Member
Jul 12, 2011
26
0
cheers for the advice guys. I has a look at some head units and i am contemplating it. The thing i like about the OEM head unit (as basic as it is) is that it suits the dash well.

Having thought about what i first posted, i am now going to upgrade front, rear and tweeters, as opposed to just rear and tweeters. As the headunit lacks power output, would fitting an amp help much with this?
 

chrisjm29

Active Member
Jul 12, 2011
26
0
Also regarding the mounting, the speakers i posted in the first post, would these be as straight swap, as there are numerous holes/slots on the perimeter of the speakers, then they can just line up with the holes already there?

Or will i have to make a mount out of mdf to be able to fit them?

thanks
 

Hawkins94

Active Member
Jan 24, 2013
43
0
The standard unit does fit in nicely! Something like a double din alpine might look alright though.

It looks like those speakers will fit with out buying or making speaker mounts :)
 

scooter1556

Active Member
Mar 24, 2013
79
0
Fitting a reasonable 4 channel amp will give a significant improvement over headunit power even without changing the speakers. I don't think I would bother changing the speakers unless I amped them or they had failed. It would be a fair amount of money for little gain in my opinion. If you do get an amp, try and match the RMS output of the amp with the capabilities of the speakers you buy and obviously go for a decent brand like JL, Alpine etc...
 
Last edited:

Big-Pete

Always on the Limit
Aug 8, 2010
3,032
2
Fitting a reasonable 4 channel amp will give a significant improvement over headunit power even without changing the speakers. I don't think I would bother changing the speakers unless I amped them or they had failed. It would be a fair amount of money for little gain in my opinion. If you do get an amp, try and match the RMS output of the amp with the capabilities of the speakers you buy and obviously go for a decent brand like JL, Alpine etc...

this.


amp will make more diffrence then speakers.

ive got an alpine type X in the boot of my boc powerd by a 900w 2ohm kenwood amp.


personally id go:

sub and amp(not halfords shite)
then
4channel amp and speakers
then headunit.
 

ii CMC

Active Member
Feb 17, 2015
3
0
They'll undoubtedly make some improvement, though as you know, you'll get a bigger improvement form changing the headunit. The OEM one can only put out 4x20W, which is nothing.

My other concern would be that the new speakers will be able to handle more much power than the amp (headunit) can put out.
This is generally not a good idea when it comes to hifi (square waves and destroyed amps) but I think/suspect that the OEM headunit has a limiter built into it (When I play some stuff there comes a point where turning the volume up any further (beyond about 20/21 usually) doesn't result in any louder volume and there's a noticeable ducking effect where the mids and hi's get turned down when the kick/bass hits) which may be a "safety" feature.

Nice to know I'm not the only one who uses a slight rear fade set-up :)

Sorry for old thread, im currently upgrading sound system and got a hertz hcp1d amp amd hertz es 300.5 sub installed and the audio shop said if i didnt want to add another amp for speakers changing the fronts and tweeter to hertz dsk 165.3 would be the way to go as they are very sensitive. Is 4x20w the peak power or rms power of the stereo? Thanks
 
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